Chapter 4 The Interrogation
Leonidas Volkov watched the intruder for exactly thirty-seven seconds before speaking.
He'd heard her long before he saw her. First, the sound of the private elevator descending—Marius departing after his nightly report. Then silence. And then, footsteps.
Wrong footsteps.
His security team's footsteps were rhythmic, heavy. Marius's were light but precise. These were different. Light, yes, but hesitant. The sound of rubber-soled shoes on expensive wool carpet, desperately trying to be silent and failing miserably.
He remained motionless in his armchair, in the darkness of his office. He didn't need the lights. The city below provided all the light he needed.
When the footsteps stopped outside his doors, he switched off his desk lamp.
She pushed the door open.
The analysis was instantaneous. Female. Young. Not a professional.
A professional assassin would have entered quickly, using the darkness, sweeping the room for threats. A professional spy would have used tools to verify the room was empty.
This girl—because that's what she was, a girl—entered like a frightened mouse. She slipped inside, her eyes fixed on the light from the panoramic window, drawn to it like an insect.
She was terrified. He could smell the fear on her, a metallic, sour note beneath the scent of the cold night air she'd brought with her.
Still, she crossed the office. She moved toward his desk. His sanctuary.
Leonidas watched, analytical. She was dressed like a catering employee. Cheap black pants, a wrinkled white shirt. Hair pulled back, functional. She'd gotten the access card from the Lux. An irritating security flaw that Marius would have to correct.
She stopped at his desk. She looked at the view. She looked at his computer.
And then, she reached out.
A small, pale hand with short, clean nails. And it trembled. The tremor was visible even in the dim light.
She was going to touch his things.
It was the personal intrusion, more than the security violation, that made him act.
He swiveled the chair. The leather groaned. A calculated sound.
She froze. The terror emanating from her was so palpable it almost amused him. She was a gazelle who'd just realized she'd wandered into the lion's den.
He let her marinate in that terror for three more seconds.
Then he spoke.
“You're a long way from home, little bird.”
He stood, savoring the sharp shock that seized her, the way her entire body locked up. He moved into the dim light, not the brightness. Control. He controlled the space, the light, the air she breathed.
He analyzed her. Now that she was facing him, he could see her eyes.
And that's where his analysis shifted.
Her body screamed terror. She was trembling from head to toe. But her eyes… her eyes were different. Amid the panic, there was a spark. A defiance. A stubbornness that didn't belong to a victim.
She wasn't an assassin. She wasn't a spy. She was something new. An anomaly.
“Who are you?” His voice was low, calm. It wasn't a question; it was a demand.
The girl didn't answer. She seemed incapable of forming words.
“I won't ask again.” He took a step.
“Amara,” she finally choked out, her voice a hoarse whisper.
“Amara.” He tested the name. It meant nothing. “How did you get in here, Amara?”
“The… the card. From the Lux.”
“I deduced that. How did you get a card?”
She hesitated. The defiance in her eyes fought against the fear on her lips. “My brother. He worked there.”
“Worked.” Past tense. “And why are you here? You don't seem like the type who appreciates architecture.”
“I'm looking for him,” she said. Her voice was stronger now. The shock was dissipating, replaced by something else. Desperation. “Rafael.”
Leonidas processed the name. Rafael.
He ran his empire with clinical precision.
Every name, every debt, every transaction was logged.
The name “Rafael” hovered in his mind for a moment before connecting to a file.
It wasn't an important file. It was trash.
A low-level employee at the Lux, flagged by Marius a few weeks ago for financial irregularities.
Minor ones. Bottle theft, perhaps. Things Leonidas didn't care about.
But then the file updated in his mind. Ah.
The name had been flagged again, a week ago. Linked to a mid-level inventory violation. Not bottles. Something from the back office.
Leonidas's irritation ran cold. All this disruption. The violation of his sanctuary. This trembling girl standing on his carpet. All because of some petty thief named Rafael.
He kept his face impassive. He wouldn't give her anything. “Rafael. And what exactly do you think I have to do with your brother the thief?”
Amara recoiled as if she'd been slapped. “He’s not a thief.”
“He worked for me. He stole from me. That makes him a thief,” Leonidas stated, each word a hammer blow.
“He was scared!” she burst out. The force of her voice surprised him. The mouse had roared. “He called me. He said he’d gotten mixed up with ‘big fish.’ He disappeared. What did you do to him?”
Leonidas almost smiled. Big fish. The arrogance of a petty criminal, imagining himself important enough to be noticed.
“I,” he said, stepping closer, invading her space, “don’t deal with small fish, Amara. I didn’t even know his name until you said it.” That was, for the most part, true.
“Liar,” she whispered.
Leonidas stopped. The air in the room grew colder.
“You have a lot of nerve,” he observed, his voice dropping to a dangerous level, “for a woman who broke into my home and is one second away from never breathing again.”
He expected her to back down. To cry. To beg. It was the script. It was what everyone did.
She didn’t.
She raised her chin. Tears glistened in her eyes, but they weren’t from fear. They were from anger. “I don’t care. I want answers. He’s my brother. Where is he?”
Leonidas studied her. Her “desperate courage” was fascinating. It was the courage of someone who had absolutely nothing left to lose. People like that were dangerous. Or, in this case, incredibly stupid.
But it intrigued him.
He was used to fear. He was used to flattery. He was used to the calculated negotiations of his rivals. He wasn’t used to this raw, honest, reckless emotion.
She wasn’t here to rob him. She wasn’t here to kill him. She was here for family. A concept that, in his world, was used exclusively as a weapon or a weakness. For her, it seemed to be a shield.
He weighed his options.
The logical choice was to kill her. Now. Clean, silent. Marius would recommend it. She was a witness. She’d seen his face, his office. She was a loose end, and he hated loose ends.
He stepped to the side, circling her slowly. She watched him, her eyes never leaving his, like a cornered animal.
But logic seemed... wasteful.
Killing an enemy soldier was business. Killing a traitor was necessity. Killing this girl... would be like crushing a bird that had flown in through the window by mistake. It would be easy, yes, but it would be uninteresting.
And, more importantly, it would be an admission that she mattered.
No. She was “too civilian.” She wasn’t part of the game. She was a domestic problem.
And there was something else.
Her intrusion disturbed him on a personal level. It wasn’t just his office. It was his. She had invaded it. She stood there, smelling of rain and fear, dirtying his ordered world with her messy emotions.
A primitive instinct rose in him—that of the territorial master. She wasn’t a threat to be eliminated. She was an anomaly to be contained. She had entered his lair.
That made her his property.
The decision was made. Death was too simple for her.
“You want to know about your brother, Amara?” he asked, stopping in front of her. He was close enough to feel the heat radiating from her terrified skin.
She nodded, her jaw tight.
“He’s irrelevant,” Leonidas said coldly. “A petty thief who flew too close to the sun. He’s probably dead in a ditch somewhere, or he fled the city with what he stole.”
“No,” she whispered. The denial was pathetic.
“Yes,” he insisted. “But he’s not your problem anymore. You are your problem. You entered my home. You saw me.”
“I won’t tell anyone,” she said quickly, the first stab of true survival fear showing. “I swear. I just want to find my brother.”
Leonidas paused deliberately, letting the silence press down on her. He watched her process her impossible situation.
“You’re not in a position to swear anything,” he said finally. “You’re not in a position to ‘want’ anything. You lost all your privileges the moment you walked through that door.”
He turned and walked to his desk. He picked up the glass of whiskey. The ice had melted. He didn't care. He took a sip, watching her over the rim of the glass.
She was a variable he hadn't anticipated. And Leonidas Volkov hated surprises.
But as he looked at the trembling girl who refused to look away, he felt the first spark of something beyond cold irritation.
Curiosity.
She was brave, stupid, and completely alone in his territory.
“Your search for Rafael,” he said, setting the glass on the desk with a solid click. “It's over. Your new life, however, has just begun.”